...trudging into the distance in the bleeding stinking mad shadow of Jesus...the Lord out of dust had created him, had made him blood and nerve and mind, had made him to bleed and weep and think, and set him in a world of loss and fire... --Flannery O'Connor

My old friend Lucifer came / Fought to keep me in chains / But I saw through the tricks / Of six-sixty-six --Johnny Cash

The Christian Century Review of Unclean

The man stumbled into the Sunday morning service drunk. He was bleeding
heavily from his hand and left bloody handprints on the door and then on
the pew. Just as he arrived, we were gathering at the altar for the
Eucharist. Before anyone had time to react, he was standing with us at
the altar to receive the sacrament...

4 thoughts on “The Christian Century Review of Unclean”

I am seeing, lately, how foot-washing can be a metaphor for any radical, boundary-crossing act of Christ-like love and service toward another human being...a willingness to get low, get messy, and be "with" a person; who, in turn, washes our muddy "feet." ~Peace~

It is interesting that there is such a connection to our core disgust and our social morals. I think we Westerners have forgotten it, but it is seen in the OT Law, where the dietary laws are mixed together without any separating categorization with the sexual laws (we force our interpretive methods on the text and create those categories). And even in the NT, the Gentile Christians were asked by the council in Jerusalem to refrain from meat sacrificed to idols, from eating blood and from sexual immorality. But most American Christians don't think twice about grilling some beef with blood still in it, yet we get into heated debate over our sexual morals.

Just got a copy of the book. My kids knew I followed your blog, so they gave me a copy for my birthday. I hadn't heard of the Dixie Cup test. I can't wait to use it in our Life Group. I'm hoping they are disgusted!